Honestly, it was a little meh. I struggled getting into this book and finishing this one. Nothing about it grippers me like I hoped it would.

Anamesis by Whitney h Murphy.
A desperate search for survival—and answers] As survivors in a ruined city, we fight to recall our own names—and the name of our city, our land, and our people. The answers lie buried in the ruins that crumble all around us.
A great read with some great characters. Liked the story. 4*.

This was an enjoyable read which kept me wanting to know how it would end. Definitely worth the read.

Very, very interesting. With a quest to reclaim and learn about a ruined city, this book takes you on an incredible journey and does not let you go until the end.

A group of survivors wake up in a ruined city with little or no recollection of their past and how they got to where they were. Every day is a fight for survival as they slowly piece their life together. Troubled by visions and chased by strange beings, these survivors are always on the run. But what if theses visions are not dreams but memories of a past life? And is it possible that these "fur covered" survivors who now fear men, were once men too?
This book however, left me completely and utterly confused. The crux of the plot did seem appealing and, yet the book did not resonate with me. There wasn't much to take away at the end of it. It was simply a story of survival with explicit description of the chases, the hiding and discovering magic or superpowers, or at least something along these lines, and the relevance for all these details was unfathomable. In the end, I was left wanting for more, but more of the plot. "Anamnesis" is part one of the "Ages of Claya" series, so maybe in the future instalments things will become clearer but I am still 50/50 about picking up the second part of this story.

Amamnesis is a very good book for the start of a series, in that both reader and narrator are learning as the story goes on. It adds to the wonder of the story, in my opinion. But the way things seemed to switch between present and past was a little off putting to me. It might just have been the formatting, but the way things moved got confusing at times, and I had to take a moment or two every now and again to orientate myself again. I suppose that was how the narrator felt as well, but it was still a little off putting, hence the lower rating. I look forward the the next book in the series though.

I'm afraid of saying too much about this book, because I really don't want to spoil anything. As its name suggests, we follow our main characters, Loreu and her friends, as they try to survive in a seemingly destroyed, dying world, while piecing together their memories and recollections of the past, of what had happened that brought them to the present situation.

The prose is beautiful, the characters are very relatable and the story masterfully unfurls before our eyes. I very much loved it. Highly recommended.

This was an interesting novel. It began wonderfully well, the first chapters were excellent and I liked the style of writing and the story that was being told. As Anamnesis begins we find survivors in a ruined city, survivors whose bodies don’t work anymore. They can’t even recall their own names, the name of the city, or of their land or people. They are looking for these answers which lie buried in the ruins that crumble all around them. The way in which Murphy described the city and the survivors was excellent, clear mental images formed of the ruined city and the hook of the story was: What has happened to the city and why do these survivors have no memories of went before? Were they once human, as the novel’s title might suggest?

So what happened after the initial promising opening? Well, firstly, the narrative is structured in such a way as to show the main character Loreu in the present but also explore the past through flashbacks which are experienced through dreams when she visits new areas of the ruined city. The first issue I had was that the narrative moved from present to past without any clear indication, but I’m willing to accept that this could be due to the formatting on my NetGalley review copy (I’ve had this with a few books and the author is completely blameless). So this made it easy to become confused with the narrative. But the second issue was that when we entered these dream sequences, when Loreu awoke past memories, the naming conventions went into overdrive and reached a point where I spent more time trying to read and pronounce mentally names and places than I did reading the story itself. For example, characters named Kyvoike Sekynteo, Tekehldeth and Dredekoldn, further words like Eviskyoneh and Ts'ufi Afre. These all left me feeling a little bemused, and if I am to be honest a little disappointed after such a promising beginning. As a contrast the names initially were fine, with Loreu and Ekyan looking and sounding like real names. If the book had begun with names and places like those mentioned above I may have put is aside but due to the early promise of Anamnesis it deserved to be finished as I instinctively felt that Murphy was a writer who had real talent. Okay, so parts of the story weren’t working for me but the parts that were kept me reading. And I was still very interested in the story of the survivors and as previously mentioned, I wanted to know what had happened.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book, which didn't have much of a description, leaving me unsure of what to expect. The story follows two tracks. At first, it picks up with a humanoid group of about 30 who are picking through the ruins of a city, their numbers thinning as they struggle to survive. They suffer from a collective amnesia, with not enough bits of memory to piece together who they are, where they come from, or what happened to them. As they tour the ruined city, fleeting memories come back to them via dreams, seeing landmarks, or interaction with others.

The other track in the story is set in a gleaming city of opulence and splendor, where a charismatic but evil lord has usurped the throne and murdered the king, while successfully pinning the guilt on the king's only child, who escapes and flees the city.

This kind of post-apocalyptic story has seen many iterations, but what sets this apart is the skillful prose and well-written characters. The writing has a beautiful, lyrical quality to it, very moving in its treatment of the characters' emotions, and the ruined landscape. It has elements that remind me of an extended fairy tale. I can't say more without giving things away. The story is not a long read- maybe 150 to 200 pages- but perfect for this story. Again, quite an enjoyable read, and I look forward to hear more from this author.

This book left me completely befuddled. The crux of the plot did seem appealing and yet the book did not resonate with me. There wasn't much to takeaway at the end of it. It was simply a story of survival with explicit description of the chases, the hiding and discovering magic (or superpowers, I think), and the relevance for all these details was unfathomable .I was left wanting for more but more of the plot. I believe "Anamnesis" is part one of the "Ages of Claya" series, perhaps if the author had chosen to write a precise and crisp single novel, I would have preferred that.